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It was sometime in August when Adele was ripping out the spent sweet peas under the hot summer sun that she realized she had thoroughly and completely fallen in love with her garden. Her garden. The place she had dreamed up, sketched out, and helped bring to life.

Something in her expression must have changed in that moment because Macalister looked up at her from where he was deadheading and said, “Everything all right?”

“I was just thinking how incredible it is that the garden has already changed so much,” she said.

He straightened, pushing the brim of his familiar straw hat up on his forehead so he could better look out around them. “It’s coming along. It’ll be beautiful one day.”

“It already is,” she said.

They shared a smile before going back to their work.

If she stopped to think about it, that ease between her and Macalister was another of the Rosewood House garden’s surprises. There was a certain synchronicity between her and Mrs. Jarrett—the housekeeper was more than capable of anticipating Adele’s requests before Adele had even made them—but the division between servant and employer was very clear with Mrs. Jarrett. Macalister, however, was an entirely different thing.

It had started with her gardening lessons. He was the expert and she the novice, but as she progressed and became more confident in what she was doing, Adele felt things shift. It became more collaborative then, the two of them stopping for lunch taken on the front porch with glasses of lemonade as they talked about succession planting, which annuals seemed to be thriving, which of her English plants seemed to struggle in the heat. Occasionally, after particularly long days of hard work, she would change and then walk out to the porch to find Macalister sitting there, his flask open and ready to share. On occasion, he might bring something picked freshly from his vegetable garden for her to try.

In this way, a sort of companionship grew between them. Adele was acutely aware that it came with certain limitations. Macalister rarely mentioned his wife except to tell her when he would be away for his four days off, and Adele rarely spoke of Guy or Mama or anything to do with her life down in Pasadena. Their bond was the garden.

One evening in the middle of October, Adele drove to the Gables after a particularly long day at Rosewood House. She had spent the day digging up and dividing bleeding heart and hostas before repotting them with an eye to eventually planting them throughout the shaded areas around the patio the following spring. She’d hardly seen Macalister, who was working on the irrigation system, and she’d been disappointed that he hadn’t been out on the porch with his flask when she’d left for the day. Instead, Harry, one of the original four men Macalister had hired to help him with the labor, had hitched her horse to the buggy for her and bid her farewell.

Back at the Gables, Mrs. Jarrett greeted Adele at the door.

“Has the post come?” asked Adele as she peeled off her gloves to hand to the housekeeper.

“It has, madam. I have placed your letters in the morning room as usual.” Mrs. Jarrett hesitated. “There is a man here.”

Adele glanced up. It was not like Mrs. Jarrett to sound so uncertain. “A man?”

“Yes, madam. A Mr. Earl.”

“I don’t believe I know a Mr. Earl.”

“He says that he has business with Mr. Whitley,” added Mrs. Jarrett.

Adele frowned. “Then I cannot imagine why he is here. Surely he knows he would have a better chance of speaking with Mr. Whitley if he were to make an appointment at one of his hotels.”

“I informed Mr. Earl of that, but he was insistent that if he could not see Mr. Whitley, he wished to see you,” said Mrs. Jarrett.

She sighed and touched her hands to her hair, knowing that after a day of gardening it was not quite as presentable as she might have otherwise liked.

“I will deal with the gentleman,” she said.

“I put him in the south drawing room,” said Mrs. Jarrett. “And if you will forgive me, Mrs. Whitley, I would not call him a gentleman.”

Adele’s brows rose at that. Mrs. Jarrett would never be so bold as to proclaim upon a caller’s place in the world unless she found something truly objectionable about the man. Nonetheless, she instructed Mrs. Jarrett to bring tea just as she would for any guest, despite the late hour.

When she let herself into the south drawing room, with its soft blue walls and green-and-blue curtains, Adele found herself confronted with a large man in a gray suit with one of her husband’s whiskey glasses clutched firmly in his right hand. The glass, she noticed, was filled with a very generous measure of the liquor Guy kept in a crystal decanter on the sideboard.

“Mr. Earl, I am Mrs. Whitley. I understand you wish to speak with my husband,” she said.

The man looked her up and down, making her feel uncomfortably exposed. “You’re Mrs. Whitley?”

“I am. I would offer you refreshment, but I see you have already helped yourself. Do you have business with my husband?”

Mr. Earl took a swig. “Your husband owes me money.”

There was something in his tone, a barely controlled aggression, that set her on edge.

“I am certain my husband would be more than happy to discuss any matters of business with you, Mr. Earl, if you would kindly make an appointment with him at his place of work,” she said.